Reading the Black Masses in Literature and Critical Practice

For more than a century, African American literature and criticism have been definitively shaped by claims about the linked fate of the black masses and the world of letters. These contested assertions provide occasions for rethinking the traditional ends of black literary production. Class conflict, the waning of black nationalism, and diasporic identity politics, are among the topics examined under this rubric. Likely literary writers include Washington, Larsen, Ellison, Brooks, and Wideman. Enrollment limited to 15 graduate students.